


Silver lining

by Millimoi



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-13 07:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 19,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5699503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Millimoi/pseuds/Millimoi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being gay is never easy, least of all in the sixties but for Patsy and Delia their cruel world will have a silver lining</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Good morning." The words were accompanied with a smile, the most beautiful half-hearted smile that showed she wasn't quite awake. My stomach flipped as Delia twisted right around, her  
Nightie and the sheets ruffling. Her dark, almost black, hair lay across her face, and crumpled under her neck. Her eyes were clouded with sleep, her lips soft and oh so inviting.  
"Good morning," I smiled back, straining my neck to reach around and meet her lips. Her eyes opened slowly, our noses still brushing together.  
"I can't believe I'm here," she whispered with her soft and lilting welsh accent.  
"Neither can I, I can't believe our luck, the whole of Nonatus House cleared."  
The nuns had left the morning previous, headed to the mother house after the death of a fellow sister. Nurse Crane and Trixie had been called out to the maternity home in the evening for a twelve hour shift.  
And now, Delia lay next to me in her pale pink nightie, the three buttons undone and the luscious curves of her breasts just visible. Delia saw me looking and winked, beginning to push herself up on her arms.  
"Would you like something Pats?" She asked, all coy.  
My body screamed, the flames running down between my legs and causing a deep pulse to begin.  
I barely even heard myself let out a soft, throaty moan causing Delia to giggle, toss her feet out of bed and cross quickly to the door.  
She stopped, leaning against the frame, lifting an arm above her head in a classic pose.  
"Come and get it then," she laughed through smiles.  
"Delia, someone might see us,"  
"What? At six in the morning?" She winked again and twirled around the door frame and into the corridor beyond.  
I gave a second's pause, before swinging my own feet around and jumping out of bed to pad after her in my bare feet and striped pyjamas.  
I found her in the kitchen, standing leaned against the sideboard. Feeling a smile start to grow across my face.  
Before I could think about where I was, or about the large window right behind me. My hand went to smooth around her waist. Feeling the softness of the skin beneath the fabric. The other hand entwined in her hair, my fingers grasping at the strands and pulling her forward, pushing her mouth open, urgently. She sighed and gave in, falling into a deep and hungry kiss. My hand slipped down her head, back and found her waist. I took a grip of her hips and lifted her onto the sideboard. Delia leaned closer to me, never letting my lips leave her's. She slipped her legs open a little allowing me to stand between them, feel her thighs around me. My hands slipped to her thighs, her mouth sitting slightly open, her eyes shut. My skin buzzed, everything burning in a bright glow like the edges of newspaper just catching. I snuggled up to the crook in her neck, nibbling softly down to her shoulder. My eyes happened upon the window and the fires went out.  
I pushed myself off Delia and backed away into the darkness.  
"Oh Gosh!"  
"What's wrong? Pats?"  
I didn't get a chance to answer before there came the sound of battering on the large wooden door.  
"Help! Nurse!"  
I grabbed an apron off the back of the kitchen door, throwing it around myself to try and look somewhat decent before rushing to the door. The heavy door was wrenched open and on the steps stood a middle-aged man with a greying beard and a flat cap. He wore work clothes, dungarees covered with patches and oil.  
"Nurse, it's my daughter, it's Rosette, 'er baby's coming. I, I've gotta get back to me work. I'm sorry, just come quick."  
And with that he turned and trotted down the adjacent street. Leaving Delia and I standing near the open door.  
"Did he see..?" Delia whispered, finishing putting in the last button of her nightie.  
I shook my head, letting out a low and staggered breath. If he had seen us, well, that wouldn't have been worth thinking about. I would lose my job, my home and the only family I had left; Delia.  
I shook my head again, trying to shake the thought from my head, trying to calm the beating in my chest. I took a deep breath, closing my eyes briefly to regain my thoughts.  
"No, he can't have," I was reassuring myself as much as I was Delia.  
"But no matter what he saw, we have a baby to deliver."  
"We?"  
"Well, I'm not supposed to attend to a woman alone, and your a perfectly good and qualified nurse so why not?"  
Delia looked shocked, her big green eyes growing even wider,  
"I've never delivered a baby before, not on my own,"  
"Well you won't be on your own, you'll be with me. Now, let's find you a uniform."

We left Nonatus just moments later, having found Delia some clothes to wear. The wind snapped in our faces the instant we so much as opened the door and like a vicious dog it did not relent in its meaningless task.  
I'd been out to miss Hamilton before and although I wasn't sure the quickest route to her home, I did know a few that would get us out of the wind.  
I stuffed my hands in my pockets as I trudged along, beating Delia by a couple of steps. Even inside my pockets my hands felt like they had been stuck in hot water. Delia must've had it worse still, as she didn't have a Mac. Her own winter coat, a beautiful thing in a bright red colour, couldn't have compared to our thick jackets that were supplied with the district nurse uniform.  
I glanced back over my shoulder, watching as Delia walked along behind me in her kitten heels, she teetered on the uneven road but continued her short-stepped trot to keep up with me.  
I stopped, glancing around at the mouth of a nearby alleyway, before stepping forward and decisively taking her hand.  
"Come on, we've got a baby to see to."


	2. Chapter 2

Miss Rosette Hamilton was a young one, she lived in the care of her Dad- Mum having died from cancer just a handful of years earlier- and she'd gone quite off the rails. The wretched young thing had lost her innocence and gained a baby in one night. Mr Hamilton had tried to love his little girl, but rumours said all he saw was the girl's mother.   
When I arrived on the scene Rosette was waddling around the living room, her legs splayed wide and a heavy sway in her step. She wore a tatty old yellow nightdress, which looked like it hadn't been washed for months.   
"Who are you?" She accused, pointing straight past me to Delia with a harsh, stabbing finger.   
Tears stained the girls face and it was clear to any good nurse that the child was terrified; she was only sixteen.   
"Now then, you might be in labour but that doesn't excuse manors. Rosette this is Nurse Busby, she has come to assist me."   
"Hello," Delia's soft Welsh vowels drifted from behind me, and- as had been the case so many times- I had to stop myself from reaching to touch her.   
Rosette didn't get a chance to reply to that, she groaned, bearing her teeth and digging her nails deep into her swollen stomach.   
"Right now, let's get you into bed." 

Several hours later, and after over a hundred contractions there was still no sign of a baby. The day's light which had risen as we left had started to come back down on us. The lack of baby didn't dampen my spirits however because I got the opportunity to watch Delia be the brilliant Nurse I knew she was.   
Yes, Delia had seen babies delivered during training but that had been many moons ago and still she never faltered, guiding miss Hamilton by the hand, bringing her through each and every burning contraction.   
It was unusual for a baby not to have moved down by this point. She had laboured for nearly eleven hours. I'd checked the position and baby's head was well engaged. Grabbing the penard from my selection of sterilised equipment on the side, I pushed it against her belly and attached my ear to the opposite side.   
I listened; nothing.  
And then the heartbeat was there, strong and fast and perfectly normal.   
Delia tilted her head to look for a verdict in my eyes, I nodded in reply.   
"Alright Miss Hamilton, I'm aware you have been pushing very hard for a long time, and I am aware you are horribly tired and so I'm going to telephone Doctor Turner. There is no reason to be alarmed, your baby is perfectly alright. I just think there's a new medicine which might give you a bit of help."   
Pitocin had only just become available on the national health, and it was beginning to work wonders for women who often fainted during labour out of pure exhaustion. It worked- so Doctor Turner had explained at the briefing- by encouraging the body to increase contractions and bring the baby along a lot quicker.   
Turning to Delia, who's knuckles where turning white under Rosette's grip, I spoke in medical terminology.   
"The labour isn't progressing, I'm going to phone for the doctor and have her labour speed increased with a new drug. Will you be ok here while I run to the telephone?" Delia nodded, smiling the dazzling smile that I'd seen so many times. Delia was in her element.   
As I stripped off my white gown and pushed on my jacket to trot down to the nearest telephone box at the end of the street, I thought about Delia. When we had first met I had seen something in her, a bright sparkle of light which wasn't in the other nurses. Delia-like myself- had chosen nursing as a career because she adored helping people, she wasn't scared of the mass-infected cuts or the gaping wounds of surgery. Delia was in it for the people, she cared for everyone; that was why I loved her so much.   
It was dark again outside, the winter drawing closer, and the sky blacking out the sun in the way people blacked out their sitting rooms. The cold was biting too, nipping at my legs through the nylons like a Jack Russell terrier. It reminded me of the year before, the time when I'd almost lost the thing I adored, the only thing that had made me truly happy since my mother and sister died- Delia.   
I arrived back in the warmth, tying my gown at the back, just as a contraction hit Miss Hamilton.   
Delia was holding her hand still, but facing her now so she could show the young girl how to breathe as the contraction stripped her of everything but pain. Her sweet accent softly broke the silence as she congratulated Rosette on her work before noticing I was back in the room.   
"Now, old chap, how are things?" I asked Rosette, once again kneeling between her legs. Carefully, once the contraction had ended I slipped my gloved hand inside the young girls body, spreading my fingers to check the width of her cervix.  
"Oh, good news Rosette, you are more than dilated enough- perhaps we won't need the Pitocin." 

Sure enough, half an hour later the baby was crowning and within forty five minutes and after one momentous push a new baby slipped into the world. The baby was nearly covered in white- far from the prettiest sight- but to me it was a sign of relief, a sight filled with joy and new beginnings.   
Wrapping a towel around the tot I gave it a thorough rub, drawing a guttural wail from the newborn.   
"What is it? Is it a girl?" Rosette puffed, still regaining her breath from the last contraction.   
"You have a beautiful baby girl miss Hamilton, congratulations."   
Rosette slowly began to smile, disbelief turning slowly into happiness and then to pure joy.   
Delia reached out hesitantly to take the newborn and show her to the mother and I passed her over.   
In the light of the window, as I heard the late doctor Turner's car draw up outside, I watched Delia cradle the newborn. She rocked the tiny baby gently as she presented her little face to Rosette. Her face shon with happiness and enthusiasm that I had never seen her show to her normal nursing duties. If only it were possible for her to become a mother.


	3. Chapter 3

It was growing dark when I headed out to Rosette Hamilton the following evening. I was beginning to think l would never see the little girl in daylight. The cold was setting in and the clouds were threatening snow but it was nice to escape the hustle and bustle of the now full Nonnatus House. Delia had returned home again, back to her temporary room and the nurses home- her mother insisted on her stating where others could keep an eye. I missed her, of course I did, but I was meeting her in our usual spot after my last stop on the day's rounds. The sooner I got through Miss Hamilton the sooner I could change and meet Delia. 

Mr Hamilton opened the door to me. He swallowed hard when he saw me. I took it that he'd taken to dislike me, just as he had to Trixie and Barbara. Oh well, such were the trials of the Poplar midwife.   
Entering the dingy and very green house, I was shown into the sitting room-also very green- where Miss Hamilton waited. She was fully dressed and waited by a pot of tea and tray of biscuits.   
"To say thank you, Nurse Mount, for bringing my Darlene into the world."   
"Oh Miss Hamilton, there's no need for that. I'm surprised your feeling well enough to be up and about." I expressed, trying to sound firm with her when really I was amazed by her resilience.  
"She's a good 'un Nurse, she knows 'ow to look after me."   
I tried my best to ignore the chauvinistic comment, instead gritting my teeth and carrying on.   
"Now, miss Hamilton, how is baby doing?"   
"Oh she's been great Nurse, barely moved an inch all morning."   
That set my stomach twisting before my brain even had time to process. Any midwife with experience should know that a baby who hasn't moved May never move again.   
"Miss Hamilton, can I see baby?" I asked, trying to keep myself calm but all the while thinking of the stillborn I had delivered the year before.   
"Of course Nurse, she's in her pram by the window. And I've named her, her name is Darlene."   
I was aware that she had said more but the words hit my ears as muffled sounds for I had crossed the floor and was peaking into the shinning Marmot pram.   
The baby lay perfectly, settled on her back with her right cheek laid against the mattress. Her little hand was up at her face, curled in a fist. The fist posed the answer to the problem. Little 7lb Darlene had grasped a lump of her shawl into her hand and pulled it to her mouth, attempting to suck her thumb.   
I pressed my palm against her cheek. Still warm.   
"Nurse? Nurse, what's wrong?" Rosette called, trying to grab my arm but I'd already scooped up the lifeless baby and began looking for a flat surface. I shoved the newspaper off the coffee table with an elbow and, realising what I was doing, Rosette moved the glass fruit bowl out of my way.   
"Baby isn't breathing, Rosette, I'm going to try a technique called CPR to try and get baby breathing again." I worked as I spoke, unraveling the stuck shawl before tilting back the newborns head. I pushed her tongue down, checking the back of her throat for foreign objects even though I was sure what had caused this.   
"Mr Hamilton, can you telephone Doctor Turner. There's five pence in my Mac pocket."   
I had never performed CPR on a baby, only seen it done on a dummy by Nurse Crane. But I knew the steps. I leaned over the baby, pressing my ear to its chest and having a last listen for signs of breathing. Nothing.   
I covered her mouth and nose with my own- remembering Nurse Cranes' example of 'like a French kiss'- and blew, as steady as I could manage, into the tiny baby's orifices. Three breaths into the baby were completed. Stage two.   
I placed the first two fingers of each hand over Darlene's tiny, fragile ribs and began pumping my weight forwards onto the ribs, massaging the heart: five times. I repeated the proceedure, and again, and again.   
Nothing was changing, nothing was happening at all. Darlene's lips shaded into blue and her skin grew colder and colder. I couldn't stop, couldn't let her die.   
Doctor Turner placed his hands on my wrists.   
"Nurse Mount," he whispered softly to me. I blinked for the first time in a long while, and felt tears on my cheeks. I looked up, looked into Doctor Turner's eyes, pleading inside that he could do something. He slowly shook his head.   
"I'm sorry. Time of death 7:30pm."   
Miss Hamilton screamed, a scream that rattled the bones of anyone with compassion. Her legs seemed to give way and she fell to her knees, hands masking her face as she screamed more.   
I felt a lump form in my throat, felt myself become aware of the situation. I looked down at the pure blue baby, still surrounded by her fluffy white shawl.  
"It was you!" Rosette screamed, pointing a shaming finger, "you didn't wait for the Doctor, you did it wrong. You killed my baby!"   
I felt my skin rush cold, and the lump in my throat began to yell at me just as furiously.   
Doctor Turner went to her, wrapping Rosette in his arms, and motioning me to leave.  
I felt like I'd been released, like a lab rat set to the wild. I left everything as it was and trotted from the house. I went straight for Nonnatus, not even remembering I was late for Delia. The baby was gone, she had passed away in my arms. I had held her little limp body, and could've done nothing to help it.   
The night air was cold and my tears clung to my cheeks, trying to stay with me and give me comfort. I shivered hard the whole walk to Nonnatus. And when I finally graced the front steps the house was mostly dark. The nuns were still in compline, Barbara and Nurse Crane off to bed after an early start, and Trixie out with a fella. I headed straight through the hall but paused. The telephone sat on the hook, waiting for me. Within seconds Delia bounced back into my mind and suddenly she was my only thought. She was the best source of comfort I'd had since my mother died when I was eleven.   
The receiver was in my hand and the number dialled within seconds.   
I listened carefully, the phone ringing on and on.   
"Hello," spoke a man with a very gruff and strong voice- the type of voice I always pictured with a beard alongside.   
"Hello sir, I apologise but could you check? Is there a Ms Delia Busby in your coffee shop presently?"   
He made some sort of acknowledging noise before the line went quiet for a moment. I was expecting the sound of Delia's beautiful accent when the receiver was lifted once more. Instead the same gruff man denied that she was there.   
Maybe it was because of the evening I'd had, maybe it was instinct, but something from that point didn't feel right. My pulse quickened and my breathing increased with it. An idea sparked and I picked up the phone once more, dialling yet another number.   
This time the ringing felt endless, it went on and on as if the phone itself was bored. Finally an answer came.   
"Hello, St John's Ambulance,"   
"Hello, I'm looking for Delia Busby."   
"Oh hello, is it Patsy? I've heard Delia talk about you. I'm afraid she's already left. She was coming to meet you at half seven."   
The voice of this older woman was becoming increasingly concerned and it was making my stomach fold over on itself like kneaded dough and so I hung up the phone.   
My mind was racing, she had left her volunteer post, but she hadn't turned up at the coffee shop.   
The flat.   
The idea bounced into my head like a bubble, it was so obvious. She would have known I'd worry and come looking for her.   
I hadn't time to find another coat I decided, and turned leaving out the door I had just came in by. Outside the weather was getting colder and I hoped Delia had money for the meter.   
I was still thinking this when under the bridge I caught a glimpse of red. It was a lump slumped up against the wall. I couldn't see much else in the dim shadow of the streetlight but what I saw was enough. My heart gave a final squeeze and then gave up, my mouth feeling like it had been washed out with sand and my legs turning to jelly.   
I had found Delia.


	4. Chapter 4

Delia? Delia!" I called over to her, dear god she must've had a seizure. I didn't even think about decorum, running to her and slipping to my knees so that the stony ground dug into them and made them bleed.   
I shook the bundle, quickly working out where her head was in the darkness. I felt for her silky hair and lifted her head into my lap. I couldn't see so I had to gently finger her face, reaching very slightly into the crevasses to find her eyes and her smooth lips. I could feel her warm breath leaving her nose.   
Suddenly she went stiff and her muscles began to spasm, her hands flapping by her side on the hard ground. She was having a seizure. I had never seen Delia have one until that moment, not a clonic one anyhow.   
"It's alright," I whispered, my lips almost scraping her ear, "it's alright; baby."  
The word still felt foreign, as though I was speaking Latin like I had at school.   
Delia's big eyes snapped open, she stared at me. Her eyes wide, looking even wider with a layer of mascara. She looked right at my face, then down to her body. Then, she began to scream.   
"Delia! Deels, I'm here," I began coaxing before realising she was not screaming in fright. I lent back on my knees, moving my hand down her body to check for injuries. She was cold, very cold. Until I reached her stomach.   
Instantly horror stories filled my mind, her skirt wasn't just damp, but sodden.   
I held my hand up to the light, as slowly as I could, feeling it begin to shake and felt the cold cling to my spine. Once it reaches the light, there was no denying my worst fears. It was blood.   
As my eyes become more accustom to the light I could see it wasn't just her skirt, she was lying in blood, a good few pints had been spilt.   
"Delia, Delia can you hear me?" I gently pushed her eyelids open with my thumb. Her pupils were dilated but not blown. She was still with me.   
My stomach gave a sharp twist as my mind took in the whole situation and I threw up on the ground next to me. Wiping the vomit from the sides of my mouth with my sleeve, I tried my best to lift Delia up. I scooped a hand under her legs and one round her back, dragging myself to my feet in the process.   
I staggered under her weight- she wasn't heavy but I had only lifted her when she had been conscious, she flopped in my arms like a very large rag doll.   
I staggered the first few steps towards the door, trying to shuffle her body weight further back onto my centre of gravity.   
The steps became harder, and I could see the house ahead of me. It continued getting harder, harder to walk and hold her weight in my arms, harder as she suddenly began to throw her arms and legs around as though she was having a nightmare.   
"Delia, it's alright," I tried to whisper through my teeth as I tried to ignore the pain in my arms. I could feel the blood continue to seep down her legs. Eventually, after a final strain of my arms I managed to reach the bottom steps. I took each step slowly, fearing I would drop her and harm Delia further. My calves were shaking a little and straining with each step. Till finally, finally, I reached the door.   
Using my elbow I banged hard on the door. An answer did not come quick enough so again I banged the door, my elbow hammering on the solid wood.   
"Patsy?" I turned to the sound of the light, feminine voice and saw Trixie standing behind me on the bottom step.   
She seemed to see Delia at the same time I spotted her, and came running up the stairs, pushing open the big wooden door.  
"Oh gosh." Trixie muttered the moment I stepped into the light and could see Delia properly.   
I too, held my breath. Delia was black and blue. She had dwelling under her eye, her lipstick strewn across her cheeks. There was a tear in the lining of her coat and she was missing a shoe. Her entire skirt, which had once been a light lilac colour, was now totally dyed the colour of her blood.   
"Get her on the table. I'll raise the alarm." Trixie demanded, rusting away from me up the stairs.   
With a new found strength I managed to hold Delia's weight for a moment more, just long enough to reach the kitchen. The solid oak table would have to do as her resting place for now. I almost threw her down on the table, my arms struggling to hold anymore. She slumped like a brick.   
Taking advantage of Trixie's absence and the chance to give Delia some dignity, I removed my cardigan to place over her once I had removed her skirt.   
I pulled it off by the sodden edged and was met by something that instantly had me running to the Belfast sink. My stomach contained nothing more to bring up, but I continued gagging for a good few minutes.   
Anger made me dizzy and my head felt like it was going to explode. I dug my fingernails into my palms, looking over my shoulder at the sweet, beautiful young woman. She was in agony.   
The sight wouldn't leave my eyes, and I'd seen it many times before but never so bad.   
I heard myself scream, short and sharp, allowing some of the anger to fizzle out my ears.   
Oh Delia, this was all my fault.


	5. Chapter 5

"Pats?" The voice was so soft, so frail I almost missed it in my anger but the moment the sound touched my ears the anger began to fizzle out of me as simply as if it were osmotic.   
"Delia! Delia, what happened? Who did this to you?"   
Before she could try and answer her eyes began to role back her head. She was loosing too much fluid.   
At that moment Barbara and Nurse Crane arrived on scene, followed by Sister Mary-Cynthia and Trixie.   
Barbara froze in the doorway, just standing watching like an incompetent child.   
"She needs blood," I stated shoving past Nurse Gilbert and on to the clinical room to get supplies.   
Tears sprung from my eyes with a mix of anger and fear. She needed blood, glucose, saline, electrolytes- we couldn't provide it all.   
We didn't get have banks of blood- not like the London who had volunteers to give blood willy nilly.   
There was only one thing I could do, one way I could prove that I was of some use to Delia, that I could protect her at least a little.   
I rummaged through the drawers, knowing the tubing and cannulas I was searching for. There was no saline to add to the flow, I would have to do this the hard way.   
"What are you doing? Rushing about like this when a friend is on the table?" Nurse Crane tutted.   
The pot boiled over.   
"What am I doing? I am attempting to give Delia the one thing that might get her to hospital- some of my blood! You think I would abandon her? Abandon any woman whom I expected had been raped!"  
Barbara, walking through into the clinical room, gently reached for my arm.   
"Patsy, she's asking for you." The words ignited something inside me, a flutter of the love I felt every time I was reminded that Delia was mine.   
I looked around at Nurse Crane, who had taken on an air of guilt after my outburst. She gave me a curt nod and said, "I'll get the rubbing alcohol and cotton wool,"  
I don't remember the walk through to the kitchen but by the time I walked back Dr Turner was standing in my place at Delia's side. Delia was tossing her head, feverishly from side to side, but she was conscious.   
"Mam? Where's Mam," she was calling out before she uttered something in Welsh. It took me to the second time she uttered, "rwy'n dy garu di, Cariad." Words I'd heard only once- the first time we made love- but I remembered the sound of them slipping quietly from her tongue.   
"I'm here," I called to her, going straight to the side opposite Doctor.   
"Cariad, mae'n brifo."   
I had no clue as to the meaning of these words, and I was the most qualified in Welsh of all in the room.   
She turned her head, mussing her hair on the wooden table, and her eyes looked straight into my soul.  
"She needs fluids," I announced to Doctor Turner. "I have type O blood, I can donate directly to Delia."   
He looked around, hoping for advise from the other nurses but with no luck he turned back to me.   
" Nurse Mount, you have experience in emergency medicine?" I nodded- there wasn't much I hadn't experienced in the last ten years.   
"I don't want blood going into her, but can you give fluids while I examine her?"   
"Saline, Doctor?"   
He nodded.   
With easy I broke into our bank of saline solution, unscrewing the cap of a sterile glass bottle I attached it to sterile tubing and prepared the cannula.   
Marching back to the kitchen I asked Barbara to put pressure on Delia's upper arm, exposing her veins.   
Finding the cephalic vein I inserted the needle smoothly, taking time to remember the thirty degree angle. She flinched, and the cannula was in. Removing the needle I attached the bottle of saline and allowed the water to flow into her veins, praying there was a way to get it in quicker.   
"This is a serious Perineal tear," doctor sighed, looking over to Trixie and Barbara, urging them to observe.   
"I'm sorry to say, but I think there is no doubt this injury was caused by rape."   
That was it. Rare surged through me, overflowing the highest measure. I barely managed to contain anything as I left the room, dashing up the stairs. I lost my slight control once I'd hit the upper floor, charging to my bedroom with tears flying in all directions. I slammed the door behind me, hearing it rattle in its frame. Crossing the floor my wrist lurched forward and I punched the wardrobe, once, twice. Again and again until tears took over and the numbness brought by anger faded to pain.   
I cradled my wrist to my chest, feeling the pain in both the joint and the bloody knuckles. Tears poured in a constant flow from my eyes, my nose ran and I shivered hard in the cold brought by the adrenaline.   
I heard the ambulance leave, my heart screaming further, I may have missed my chance to say goodbye.


	6. Chapter 6

The teal green walls of the hospital corridor seemed to go on forever. Each foot was the same walnut colour with a small curtain across the window to its right. The curtains were green also, but not quite the same green, not so different it was obvious but not so similar you would miss the difference.   
There were slates on the front of each door containing a number and underneath stating the name of the patient.   
I glanced at the door next to me, curiously eyeing the slate. The name read, as I had expected, Miss Delia Busby. The writing style was messy and callous and written in childish, yellow writing. There was a squeak against the window frame of her room, I turned to look at it but there was no sign of movement.   
Suddenly the door was wrenched open. A woman wearing a green beret stood in the doorway. Her eyes were red, a deep Crimson which slowly changed. The colour became wider and wider, metamorphing slowly from scarlet iris' into full on flames, burning slowly in her eyes.   
The woman, whom I had began to realise was Mrs Busby, whipped out a red wooden scarf and lassoed it around my neck crushing my throat so I had no choice but to step closer. The heat from the flames radiated onto me. The eyes grew closer, making my face hot and sweat run down it from the bright red orbs which descended. In the fire came, closer and closer and closer and then they were so close I couldn't escape. I tensed waiting for the searing pain that would come from being burned.   
A shock of icey cold hit me full-on and I was standing in the cold. The bridge loomed in front of me. And there she was lying in the cold: Delia. I tried to get to her, seeing a pool of blood like a pond seeping from her filling the street.   
I pushed forwards but arms grabbed my wrists, I pulled and twisted,   
"Delia!" I called out in desperation, my voice cracking. She was in agony, I had to get there, I needed to help her.   
The thing pulling me back held tighter, my legs began to feel restricted, like I was running in mud.   
"Patsy!" She called, her voice firm and angry, blaming me for not coming to help her.   
The vision merged, becoming a strange blur of white, I squinted my eyes, looking up and watching as my eyes focused and I recognised the ceiling.   
I was at home, Nonnatus house, in my room. Then I remembered, and as soon as I began to remember I also recognised there was weight on my legs, a heavy numbing weight. I felt myself grin wildly as I looked down my nose and into a pair of beautiful eyes.   
She was safe; she was home. 

It had taken so long, so many months before she was even half-balanced again. Delia's perineal tear had been a bad one, a severe tear which had needed stitches, skin grafting and toileting catheters for a good month. At first she wouldn't eat or drink, she couldn't talk about the event and she began to have vacant seizures once more.   
The nurses had her on a half-hourly obs schedule after her skin graft, checking and cleaning the wounds. She was on an intravenous drip on fluids, electrolytes and glucose.   
I didn't have a choice to love her. I had to be what I was, a Nurse. I had to be the friend that I was seen as by all of Delia's family. I had to be the very close friend that everyone at Nonnatus saw.   
Sister Julienne had me taken off rota for ten days after it happened. I barely slept. I barely ate. Everyday I was in to see Delia; every day no response. Sister Julienne couldn't miss me anymore and I was happy to get on with things.   
Exactly a month after the event, Delia's catheters were removed. She steadily began to walk around,  
She was given toileting aids in the way of medication, slowly her physical wounds were healing but her mental wounds would leave her scarred forever.   
After three months in hospital there was talk of sending her to a psychiatric asylum- a place she would be safe. The day they told me I felt my heart crumble like a stale biscuit, I knew she didn't belong there, that would be blaming her, treating her as if she had done something awful rather than be an innocent standing by.   
Her parents agreed to send her to somewhere she would feel safe, feel comfortable to express her fears and psychosis a little further, maybe one day give Sergeant Noakes some kind of identification of the man that did this to her. When asked where she felt safe, there was no hesitation from Delia, her words were simple but firm.   
'With Patsy'.  
It had been five months exactly since Delia had came home. Seven months since the incident. She would never be the same again, but looking up at her in her salmon pink pyjamas- top button undone- while she straddled the bottom of my legs, she would always be mine.  
"Pats, you were having a nightmare again," she stated, carefully running the tips of her fingers up my cheek.   
I cupped her hand, relishing in the feel of her skin, reminding myself she was here.   
Her big eyes met mine and I barely noticed as she lent forwards, tilting her head ever so slightly. Then my eyes were closing, my heart beat thrumming and our noses brushing.   
Her soft lips pressed lightly on my own and lightning burst through my, making me shudder in delight. A small sound escaped as her lips left, a sound of annoyance, which must have resonated in my expression.   
Delia, hands still clasped to the sides of my face, laughed and came back for more. Her lips slowly rubbed away from mine, encouraging my mouth to open and our kissing to become wet and loving. Delia whimpered before pulling back for breath,   
"I don't know how you do this Patsy Mount," she sighed with a luxuriously husky voice. Her eyes were glazed like cherries and her pupils dilating fast.   
I looked up at her, trying to stop my groin from determining anything, and used my eyes to ask her.   
We hadn't had a roll in the hay since a good while before the accident and I didn't want her to feel she had to.   
She nodded, leaning forward once more and taking my ear lope between her teeth. She sucked for a second then let the cold air hit my ear love before she whispered, gently and sweetly, "take me."   
I didn't need her encouragement to take me further. My hands scrambled forwards, burrowing into the pyjama shirt, trying to find the skin of her hips. A spark ran through me the second I found it, and a little gasp of appreciation left my mouth.   
It didn't do anything to restrain my hands, my fingers ran up her skin like little legs until I reached where I wanted to be.   
Delia gave an undignified moan and thrust her hips forward. My finger tips edged over her aerola, finely circling her very erect nipples. She leaned in, crushing my hands between our chests, as she gently probed at my mouth with her tongue until I accepted it into my mouth. My body was burning by this point, I was so desperate to feel something there, something from Delia, her hands; her mouth.   
My hands slipped down her front to her planed stomach, to the edge of her pyjama bottoms.   
That's when she stopped.   
She pulled away from me violently, looking down at herself and cradling her own body in her arms.   
"I'm sorry Pats," she breathed before her voice broke and she looked up at me through tears.   
"I can't."   
"Oh Delia," I sighed, feeling all the fire slip from my blood stream to be replaced with guilt. I reached out my arms, urging her into them. Like a weary traveller she accepted my offer and lay her head with a soft thump on my chest, cushioned by my breasts.   
She burst into tears. Tears running down her cheeks and onto me. I shouldn't have been so selfish. Delia wanted this just as much as I did, but I couldn't force her, and shouldn't ever have made the first move. I knew that made matters worse. I was a selfish idiot.   
But the damage was done and all I could do was rock her in my arms, hold her while her tears soaked into our clothes.   
"What if I'm never able to do it again?" She asked, her voice crackling. She tried to hide the question, tried to hide the fact she had worried about this many times.   
"Then," I breathed, taking in the loss as the words left my mouth,  
"Then we live without." I paused, thinking, "Delia, there are so many ways of sharing love, it doesn't have to be physical."   
She didn't reply but I could tell she was listening. After a moment she mumbled against the skin of my breasts, "so you wouldn't leave me for something else?"  
"Something else? What, a man with his funny shaped sausage, no thank you!"   
Delia giggled, pulling her face from my cleavage in order to look me in the eye.   
"Delia Busby, I never imagined I'd fall in love at all, not with a girl, and least of all with you. Things happen, we are tried and tested and we try our best to get through. That, my love, is life."   
She offered me a faint smile, and burrowed back into my chest. I smiled into her hair, kissing her scalp and smelling her clean hair. My hand wandered down her side, slowly covering her waist. 

They always say bad things come in threes, and in that second my world fell apart for the second time in seven months. 

 

(A/N) I wanted a chance to thank you all for reading and thank you for the fantastic comments I received. I hope you keep enjoying and commenting. And also, never be afraid to chat to me about the story, or call the midwife in general, my inbox is always open :)   
Thank you


	7. Chapter 7

"Lie down," I barked at Delia, trying desperately to think of another explanation for what I had felt.   
She, although startled, followed my instructions, laying flat out on her back facing me. I approached her, slipping her pyjama blouse up to the under curve of her breasts so I had a full view of her stomach. To the untrained eye there was nothing to see. I prayed my eye wasn't trained enough. My hand lay flat across her ribs and slid firmly down until I reached the deciding lump. The lump was larger and more pronounced than I had hoped it would be. It seemed to have a knock-on effect because one grew in my throat just as large.   
"Delia," I struggled to whisper, the lump mashing up my voice so it came out squeaky and wrong.   
"Patsy, please, please tell me I don't know what you just did, that I don't know what you were looking for," her voice was getting panicky, her eyes widening with a hint of what had to be fear. I swallowed, pushing the lump further down my throat, before I spoke again, trying my very best to sound professional.   
"Delia, you haven't had a period since it happened?"   
She shook her head quickly, tossing it lightly from side to side in horror.   
"Oh Pats, no, it can't."   
"I, I'm going to fetch Trixie," I breathed out, trying to remain calm. I gave her knee a quick squeeze before jogging from the room, closing the door and letting the floodgates open. My legs didn't want to take me weight and I crumpled into a soggy pile on the floor, not giving a care in the world about how I looked.   
What had he done to her? She didn't ask for this, for any of it but especially not this.   
"Nurse Mount?" I barely managed to draw my eyes away from the floor to look up and see the owner of the voice above me.  
It belonged to the once severe Nurse Crane, a woman who I had seen at the most vulnerable, but a woman I knew was strong, professional and kind.   
"Oh Kid," she sighed, when she saw the redness in my cheeks, and the ivory of the surrounding skin. This was enough, enough for me to gather it all up again, stuff it into my box of emotion and padlock the lid.   
"Could, could you fetch me a pinard? And, and all is need to conduct a urine pregnancy test, please." 

(A/n) hello guys I seriously apologise for how long you have waited for this chapter, I also apologise for it being so ultra short. I have had a lot of work at college recently and have been exhausted when I've been getting home- which has been pretty late at night- however next week I am off college so you will hopefully have a much longer chapter (maybe even two!) during that week , thank you for understanding.


	8. Chapter 8

I stared at the tiles on the kitchen wall, seeing the imperfections in the grout between each one. I saw the edges which weren't quite straight. I noticed gouges in the wooden table, bumps beneath the teal table cloth.

I was wounded deeper than I had been for so long, and wounded in a very different way. When my mother and sister were taken it had been like a hammer to the heart, shattering into pieces in a swift blow. This wound, it had two parts. Delia's attack had been the knife that stabbed straight into my heart. This, this was the knife being twisted within the wound, taking every piece of pain I could manage to feel and pulling it from me.

I was aware that there was dampness on my cheeks, aware that meant I was crying, but unable to care. There was no feeling left, I was unable to feel even the slightest of emotions. I was numb. There was no rage, no fear, no melancholy; no feeling.

I was aware that in the room upstairs Nurse Crane was performing an internal exam. I knew that normally the thought of another woman touching Delia should have made me mad, but there was nothing. This had to be done.

I was also aware that in the clinical room Trixie was performing a test on Delia's urine, waiting for it to turn blue over the heat of the small Bunsen burner. I knew that Delia should never have fallen pregnant, that it should have been as much of a miracle as the virgin birth. But this was happening and there was nothing I could do about it, nothing I could do to reverse the time, to turn back the clock.

I sat and thought, thought about how I might have been able to perform a medically safe abortion, I knew how to dilate the cervix, how to use a crochet hook to simply hook the amniotic sac and burst it like popping a balloon.

"Patsy," I jumped a mile when I felt the soft hand land on my shoulder, I twisted quickly, scared that the small hand belonged to Delia. She didn't need to see me upset, to see me worrying about her. The hand, in fact, belonged to Barbara.

"It's positive isn't it- the test?" I asked straight away and I knew the answer by the deep breath that Barbara took. I knew that deep a breath could never mean good news; it was a delaying tactic.

Barbara decided not to say the words at all. Instead she handed me a cigarette and my lighter- she must have taken it from my bedside table. I took it gladly, feeling my hands shake like those of an alcoholic's while I tried to flick the tab on the lighter and get a flame. Once lit I took a long drag, shutting my eyes and trying to let the tobacco do its job, try and relax myself.

"It's like sitting with a father-to-be, waiting on the arrival of his new baby," Barbara chirped, trying to lighten the situation. If only she knew how right she was.

Sitting down, beside me Barbara looked around, looking at the linoleum floors, the kitchen tiles and the Belfast sink. She began to fiddle with her fingers. She sighed at the table cloth, squeezed her hands together and finally, after finding the courage to do so, looking up at me.

"Patsy," she began, speaking the way my aunt had done when she explained puberty to me at age twelve, that patronizing and slightly awkward voice that means the person is going to talk about something they would rather not mention at all. I took another deep breath in, taking as much tobacco into my lungs as I could in one shot.

"Did, has, did Delia have a boyfriend- before the attack?" Now I understood where the hesitation had come from. They thought Delia had done this deliberately, they were blaming her for becoming pregnant.

Now my emotions came back, flying back into my system. Delia couldn't even look at a Penis, the thought of touching one made her feel slightly ill. She could never, and wouldn't ever. Then the doubt set in, did she have someone, had something been going on behind my back? Was she lying to me when she said she loved me, was I a cover story? A game?

No, I knew her better than that, I had seen her squirming in anatomy classes. I had seen her fingers curling back in repulsion when she had been asked to examine a small cyst in training. She couldn't have, she wouldn't have become pregnant just like that. It must have been him, the awful bastard who had attacked my sweet angel.

"No," I snapped, before realising my reaction was too fast, too close to flipping the lid and revealing our façade. "I mean, Delia still gets the giggles looking at a chap, she would never have managed to get that close to one, not yet. She's, she's simply not mature enough yet."

Barbara nodded in understanding, but her knitted eyebrows told a very different story, she was confused, something was bothering her.

"It's just, maybe it was delirium talking, but. Patsy, Delia said, well, her exact words were 'At least the baby will have red hair. I wondered, should we alert Seargent Noakes? Do you think it's a clue."

My blood began to fizz and pop inside me, oh good god, it all made sense, there was only one person there could be, one person who could have been in charge of the attack on Delia. One man who had enough contact with me, and with Delia to have made the connection. It made sense where he had ran to, it made sense that it had all happened in one single day. The death and the attack in the same day had been far from coincidence because Rossette Hamilton had red hair.


	9. Chapter 9

(A/N) I am going to make this short. I have noticed that in the past few chapters, or really since my very short chapter (chapter seven), that people have stopped commenting on this story. This has been getting me down, I mean I know that you all have your own very busy lives and I am not the type of person to bribe people and say I need so many comments before an update but I will say that commenting on this story will mean that I ma likely to write more and write quicker. Sorry if this seems like a complaint, but I am happy with any comments or PM's about my writing, I like feedback, especially if something has made it so you aren't interested in the story anymore. Thank you.

On a lighter note I have two more one-shot fics in mind and I plan on writing them both but I was wondering if there would be interest for either of them. The first concerns something I have been researching and feel I am able to do in detail, a kind of fluffy sex scene between Patsy and Delia, and Patsy telling us a little more about the world surrounding sex lives of the fifties. The second one is in regards to the american liberation of the japanese POW camps, and how Patsy remembers and experienced the day she became a person again and not just a number.

If you are interested in either of these stories, or want to give me some feedback on this story then please don't feel afraid to talk to me. Thank you for your cooperation and I am currently working on the next chapter.


	10. Chapter 10

My fist slammed against the wood of the door. It was an old door, and not well looked after so the wood creaked a little beneath my fist. I knew it had to be him, it had to be if it was anyone, and it was someone. Mr Hamilton had left the room after his granddaughter had left this earth. Now I understood why, now I understood his stupid, hideous ideas. He has blamed Delia, he knew she was a younger nurse, knew she wasn’t a qualified midwife; knew she had been left with the labouring mother.   
It all made so much sense, but nonsense all the same, Delia had done nothing, nothing at all to cause harm to the mother or baby and I would happily vouch my life to such. No woman could ever, ever deserve to be attacked in such a mindless and disgusting way. Delia had vowed she would stay a medical virgin, vowed never to have a man near her in such a way and yet he tore that right away from her.   
He wasn’t a stranger, he was family of her own patient- I had treated him for a male problem only months before. To think I had touched his weapon of choice, I had seen the knife that was used to tear Delia apart, to tear through her mind as well as her body.   
My palm slammed on the wood, tears threatening to spill from my eyes out of the enormous anger I held for this man; this creature.   
“Mr Hamilton,” I called between gritted teeth, “It’s the Nurse.” Knowing how much he valued his precious body- like a hunter valued a gun- I knew he would come to the door worrying I had more news than just a case or herpes. Well he had much to learn.   
The door hadn’t had so much as a chance to fully open before I found my fist flying forwards, knocking him square in the jaw and twisting his neck slightly.   
“You bastard!” I found myself screaming at him, continuing to flail my hands at him, knocking him with as many punches and scrapes as I could. He grabbed me by the wrists, suddenly turning me against the wood of his door. “What’s gotten into you, ey?” he asked, trying to sound jovial.   
“Despite your view of women Mr Hamilton I’m not stupid. I know it was you, you attacked my friend!” He shoved a rough and dry hand over my mouth, the smell of his skin made me shudder and I quickly- out of my own disgust- bit into his hand, making him swear and pull away. He grabbed my waist, and using his weight shoved me against the door, causing it to swing open and me to stumble and fall to a heap on the floor of the yellow hallway.   
“Friend is she?” His tone had changed, it was hard and cold; menacing. “You, you little madam are a bloody dyke. Don’t deny it, I saw yah! You and her. It’s disgusting! You’re are a pair of freaks. And don’t worry, if you’re that sick in the head I’ll do for you what I did for her, I’ll show you what it is to have a cock in you, show you the way things are meant to be.” I scrambled to my feet, my heart thumping, thundering like a runaway train inside my rib cage.   
“You think I won’t report you? You think the law will not have you put away for this, for being a hideous molester of innocent young women!” I found my strength, through my fear, knowing this was my job, knowing I had to fight for Delia.   
He began to chuckle, a horrible sickening sound, that filled me with adrenaline and had me glancing at the door. “But, little missy, you forget, my missus was a nurse. I know the rules, if you were to be found out, if people was to see you wasn’t right in the head then your career would be gone in a puff of smoke.” He pulled the door wide open, not taking his eyes off me.   
“Now you get out of my sight, you filthy whore, and I won’t say anything unless you say, besides- no one would believe you anyways.”  
I ran while I had the chance, angry at myself that I couldn’t do more, couldn’t be the person I wanted to be, the protective male-figure that Delia needed at a time like this. Besides, he had seen us, we were both very lucky he hadn’t gone to the police already. Yes, it was legal to be a queer woman, but the board of nursing wouldn’t ever see it that way. We would be dismissed, and shunned- especially homeless. We knew what the bible said, sodomy was a sin, but this wasn’t technically sodomy and he also said we should live and let live.   
I trudged on through the biting cold wind, allowing myself to feel the temperature which I hadn’t noticed with my anger levels being so high. I had to get home. I was beginning to take in the past few hours, and think about how I had behaved. I had abandoned Delia, I really had just left her to fend for herself in the horrors she was going through. She had needed me, needed a hand to hold and I had left her with nothing. I needed to get home, let my hair down the way she liked it, and curl her up in my arms, hold her tight and never let her go again. I didn’t care that the Nonatuns would notice, I didn’t care if it was too protective, too much for a pair of friends. I needed to be with the one person I allowed myself to love.   
Entering the big monastery door I walked straight past the doorway leading to the kitchen, not even bothering that I could hear people talking. I heard muffled voices, over nursed cups of tea, before Trixie’s voice rang out clear above the other nurses. “I don’t think it is slightly fair to be talking about either of them. If they ask for our help then we give it, otherwise we keep our noses out.”   
I headed straight up the stair and to the far end of the hallway, knocking briefly on the door to Delia’s room before going in. The light was off, so at first I presumed she had gone to bed, then I noticed the room wasn’t totally dark, the curtains were open. She wasn’t in the room at all.   
Then I heard a crash, the sound of glass breaking from further down the hallway. Oh heavens no. I followed the sound dashing into the room I shared with Trixie. I knew that Trixie hadn’t disposed of all alcohol, instead she hid it from temptation under my bed. I walked into the room and found exactly what I had expected although the sight had far more impact than anything I could have imagined. My heart felt like it had been taken in hand and squeezed.   
Delia was sitting on my bed, tears rolling down her red cheeks and my pyjama top cradled to her chest like an infant. In her other hand she held a bottle of whisky. A bottle which had now been opened.   
(a/n) I wanted to thank you all so much for your comments after my little update, and say that I am very grateful to you all for reading this story. I hope you enjoy this chapter and as always, let me know your thoughts. Thank you.


	11. Chapter 11

"Delia!" My hand lunched forwards and snatched the bottle from her hand. "What on earth do you think you're doing! Your pregnant, and you're a nurse, you know you can't do anything but harm that baby now!"   
She glared back at me, her eyes narrowed and cold as steal.   
"Don't you think I know that! Don't you think I understand what that means!" She threw the top she was holding at me with force, standing and throwing herself forward. She instantly went sheet-White and I grabbed for her waist, preparing to take her weight if she fainted.   
"Get off!" She yelled at me, pulling away from my hold hard, scratching me with the edge of her fingernail.   
"This, this mess, the horrible world I've now got to live in, it's due to you Patsy! You did this!"   
I froze, losing all feelings to my body. The words replayed in my head. 'You did this, you did this; you.'  
"Delia, I-," the words came out of my mouth in a squeak as I tried my best to show my empathy, my true feelings. "I didn't ever expect something like this, I never could have imagined,"   
"But it happened, and look at me now. I've got a baby inside me, a baby belonging to some awful man who attacked me and left me for dead. I've got nothing Patsy, I can't work anymore, I'll be shunned by everyone."   
"No-," I began but she cut in once more.  
"That is, unless I get married."   
My heart froze to solid ice inside my chest, scraping it's sharp point down my rib cage and taking my lungs with it. I couldn't think, couldn't feel, couldn't breath. That was a hard blow- the worst thing ever said to me in anger. This was the reason I didn't love, the reason I didn't trust. The second my heart healed it was torn or crumbled or burst once more.   
Marriage. One of the two things I could never give her. Now that one had been implanted in her body, the second thing had to happen too. She couldn't take the pain, the agony of being a slapped who deserved what she got. Delia was too special, too beautiful from the surface to the core. She deserved a better life.   
"You know," I began at a whisper, "you know I can't give you that. You know," my voice began to increase in volume as passion took over my mind. "I'd do anything to take you to the church and have us married. You know I'd sell my god forsaken soul, Delia, in order to keep you."   
Her voice suddenly came down to a gentler tone, one still brimming with anger but just at the lip of the glass sat a millimetre of love.   
"I know you would, but you can't. You can't provide for us, you can't marry me, or sire our babies. You are not a man, and that's why I can't afford these feelings."   
Silence instantly filled the air. The tension began to dissolve like salt in to saline, I could see Delia's shoulders relax although her eyes never left mine and never lost their question.   
My heart leapt when the idea crossed my mind. It was more than an idea, it was a great decision, one that made me feel queasy with nervous energy.   
I got to my knees beside my bed, pulling out the cardboard shoebox which contained almost all my greatest treasures. I knew it was near the bottom, wrapped in a silk handkerchief. It was all I could do for Delia, all we could ever have hoped for. I knew it was a thing of delicate beauty, a thing filled and overspilling in love. That was why I walked to Delia, crouched, pressing one knee to the ground and took her hand in mine.   
"Delia Busby. You once said there must be a place somewhere that we could dance together, a place where we could be as we are. One day, maybe. Maybe we will find that place, and I can do this properly, without having to be a man. When we find this, this sanctuary. Delia, would you marry me?"   
The feeling I was about to vomit had returned and my heart pounded in time with the seconds hand on my watch. Delia stared at me, her expression giving no expression of emotion. Then slowly, as if it were a stop-motion cartoon,  
A single tear came running down from Delia's eyes.   
"I never thought I would feel for anyone the way I do for you. I never had a brother to take on the tradition. So I will step up to the plate, Delia, will you be my wife?"   
Slowly her lips began to tremble, a soft whimper escaping her mouth.   
She didn't speak, neatly dropping to her knees and pushing her arms around me, tangling her fingers into my hair.   
"Yes," she whispered.   
I smiled softly.   
"I know I can't fix everything, but I'll always try. For you." 

(A/N) hello everyone, hope you enjoy this chapter. I just wanted to pop on and say that I am also working on a ficlet called what is love? Involving these two, incase you're interested. I also made my first padelia fanvid- search for 'patsy and Delia - photograph' on YouTube. I also want to say I am sorry if my 'voice' for patsy is a little off and if this is a little short, tonight's episode didn't inspire me as previous have. But I hope you guys can inspire me! Thanks for reading


	12. Chapter 12

(a/n) just wanted to mention that this chapter is of a mature nature, although it is important to the plot development and so if you don't feel comfortable reading it I will mention that Delia is now heavily pregnant, and that the last few lines are of importance. Comments welcomed as always, thank you. 

 

Delia's lips were Devine. A treat every time I tasted them. They were so soft, the outer edges dry and slightly chapped but the insides smooth and wet. And then my whole body would grown, my down-belows aching for more as she would run her tongue along the inside of my teeth, teasing my gums until my own tongue fought back.   
It was a dance we knew well, a dance I appreciated even more so now that she was heavily pregnant. Her stomach was swollen now, her breasts ripe- and leaking a bit when she got too excited- as a midwife I was delighted by her new shape, delighted by the glow. Her hair was thicker, stronger when I ran my hands through it. Her nails sharper as the stretched my back and arms. Her breast soft and supple to each delicate kiss. Her nipples larger, and very sensitive to a little nibble.   
As her lover I saw more, I saw delightful curves become more prominent, saw her breasts get larger. To my surprise her sex-appeal was growing stronger as each day passed. I adored her pregnant form.   
"Mm," she muttered, out of annoyance and I instantly pulled my weight off her body, frightened I was hurting her. Instead when I met her eyes I saw frustration.   
"Ugh, I'm sore Pats," she sighed stroking my face with a quivering hand, "this is uncomfortable- and I feel like I tap." I couldn't help but giggle, grinning from ear to ear like a small child. I had been aware of the dampness against my own chest but I wasn't going to interrupt.   
I had a thought as I pulled myself up onto my arms- something I'd heard of but had never actually thought of doing before. And it wouldn't irritate Delia by having to lie on top of her.   
"Delia, do you trust me?" I extended my arms fully and noticed in the past two or three weeks she had become so big that our stomach's still touched.   
"More than anything," she smiled, continuing to stroke my cheek.   
"I want to try something new, something I know that a man and woman can do, and we have one of the necessary parts..,"  
Delia nodded, giving me permission.   
I went to my knees, looking down her stomach as I did so and taking in the Linnea Nigra heading to the crumbled nest of dark, rough hair between her legs, hiding her parts from view.   
I scooted my knees back, my feet slipping over the edge of the foot of the bed and gently used my fingers to separate her labia and lay her open to me.   
My eyes wandered back to her face waiting for a reaction but she simply looked curious.   
I took in her inner crevasses, the flower-like structure formed around her enlarged clitoris.   
Taking a deep breath I leant forward, wrapping my forearms around her full thighs to give them somewhere to go. I slowly, gently pushed my tongue from between my dry lips and, as though I was kissing her mouth, I took the Rose- shape between my lips and sucked gently.   
Delia let out a sound, the noise of sucking air between her teeth. I tried to glance up to her, trying to meet her eyes but unable to see over her swollen belly.   
I licked a deep, straight line, feeling the entrance of her vagina squeeze slightly at the feeling. The curls brushed hard against my nose and cheeks but I didn't let it stop me.   
She tasted slightly sweet, but mostly as I had expected her to.   
The noises slowly increased from Delia, moans and sighs becoming grunts and small cries.   
"Oh Patsy!" She cried out, pushing my hand away from her thigh and gripping it tight with her own, her fingers tangled tightly with mine.   
The liquid flowed from her like a waterfall, making me swallow it several times.   
Her thighs began to tighten around my head, her spare hand clawing desperately at the sheets on the bed, untucking the corner and dragging the white cotton with her.   
She began to tremble and buck her hips, tossing her head wildly so that hair stuck to her face. Eventually the huge contraction hit her body and with a last wash of fluid she collapsed back.   
I lifted myself at lightening speed onto my arms, looking up at her, waiting for some kind of reply.   
"Oh my, Patience Mount, if this is what midwifery teaches you I want to join!"   
I smiled to myself, crawling back up Delia's body and lying down with a thump on the edge of the bed beside her.   
"Oh Delia, you are doing so well."   
My hand found her hair wrapping a strand around my fingers.   
"Don't Pats, let's not talk about it now," she twisted heavily onto her side her stomach pushing into me.   
I knew she didn't want to think about it but she had came so far. There was a time when the brush of our hands would cripple her with fear, give her flashbacks of the awful attack. Now though, now she was recovering. It was a slow recovery, but she had stepped from army crawling in the dirt to crawling on her hands and knees. We were both damaged souls, both hurt in a way we could never recover from but we never needed to so long as we had each other.   
"Delia," I began to speak but my speech was interrupted. Delia's face crumpled like a piece of paper, her lips pursed and she let out a small Yelp.   
"Patsy!"


	13. Chapter 13

That's when it began with Simon. An evening at the pictures, then a picnic, walking me to a fro. As the time went on the probationer became used to bringing me notes. I became used to being in a relationship with a man. I didn't love him- I didn't know what love felt like but I was more than aware that this wasn't it. Even when, in the following July he kissed my deeply, all I felt was a tongue swirling about in my mouth- not even a tingle of emotion.   
But I had written to my aunt, my Father was delighted that I'd found a fellow. I was delighted to be pleasing him, to have him feel I was becoming the daughter he wanted, the daughter who wasn't damaged by the war.   
It was August when it began to change. August when he did something so obvious that I was given a tough shake and began to see what I was missing.   
"Come to bed." He had insisted after a meal at a local restaurant.   
I hadn't known what to say, part of me was willing to go with him, another part was terrified.   
"I have rubbers," he added in a whisper as though pregnancy was the only thing on my mind.   
"Oh, I'm allergic to latex," I tried to tell him, quite pleased with my quick thinking until I realised it was going to be no help to the situation.   
In fact I made it worse.   
He took me home that night, stripped me bare and thrust his manhood inside me. It was just as expected, sore and rough and I felt I was jerked around like a pulley string. Simon had grabbed at my breasts, pummelling them with his chest and rib cage with every thrust. It was uncomfortable and strange and the feeling inside me was like I was being grated.   
He left me in the large bed in his bachelor flat to recover while he made some telephone calls. It took me a while to sit up, moving my legs closer together or further apart was uncomfortable, and it took me only second to see I was bleeding. Officially no longer a virgin, but in spirit I felt like I had just entered prostitution. There was no love for this man, barely even care other than not to hurt him. I felt as though we were strangers, like those in the Far East who were forced into arranged marriages.  
I had my answer: not the one I wanted. It wasn't curable- being a lesbian. The whole time Simon had spent within my body I had been thinking of other things, of work, or my next meal; of women. 

I was late. I was never late. Nursing was a vocation which didn't stand for disobedient behaviour- and that included sex for any nurse.   
I had only been late when I was twelve and just starting out with the curse.   
Being a nurse on male surgical I wasn't sure how to slip in a sample without it being noticed, having to take a urine sample bottle from one of the supply cupboards off the surgery corridor, I kept the bottle- tightly sealed- in my apron pocket.   
As chance would have it a week after I'd began carrying the bottle- which was refilled each day- I finished late. I was just leaving the ward after an emergency on a patient with acute appendicitis. The surgery was conducted by Tracy, the arrogant fool, who managed to pierce the appendix and allow poison to flow from the inflamed organ into the abdomen itself.   
The whole inside wall of the abdomen had to be washed and carefully handled. I tried my best to be gentle with the innards which Tracy dumped into my hands. He didn't care about the intense bruising the poor sod would suffer afterwards.   
By the time I'd changed from my scrubs into my normal uniform the last ward round had been completed and the night shift had come on duty. The hospital was on skeleton staffing for the night.   
I was just leaving the hospital for the nurse's home when I bumped into her again, the young nurse-Delia. My heart leapt when I saw that she was carrying the last box of labelled urine samples of the day.   
"Nurse Busby!" I called after her, trotting a little down the corridor to catch her.   
"Just the girl I was looking for! You couldn't squeeze another sample in could you? It's for a Mathilda Horace." I quickly grabbed the bottle out of my pocket as if pretending to check the information on the bottle.   
Delia's eyes narrowed, her head twisting slightly to the left in a way that questioned me.   
"Why would a pregnancy test come from the men's ward?" She asked.   
"It wasn't from the ward, Matron caught me in the corridor." I began to feel like she was accusing me, she must know how dangerous that was, to be a common whore, to sleep around; to be pregnant.   
"And I would ask you to remember your position."   
I stalked off, feeling angry at her confrontation. But feeling something else too, something that made me feel wrong- like I shouldn't hurt the young nurse.   
Little did I know it then- or for several months to come- that then I was beginning to discover the reality. This was love.


	14. Chapter 14

"It's alright Delia, I'm here," I sighed, gently running my hand across her stomach, sure enough the muscles were taught. In a matter of a minute-perhaps less- Delia looked back at me, expectantly   
"Looks like things are all go, time to get a warm bath and some rest."   
"You, you mean I'm in labour?" Delia asked, her voice filled with a question she could already answer.   
I nodded,   
Delia's eyes widened with fear- the reality of the situation coming back to her. Now it was real- in a matter of hours Delia would give birth.   
"Don't worry," I soothed, stroking the side of her face with the back of my hand.   
"We've got plenty time yet, and I won't leave you- I'll be here the whole time. I promise." She nodded quickly, agreeing to try her hardest.   
"Just let me alert another midwife, and then we'll get you a bath and some raspberry tea."   
I smiled as I left the room, quietly shutting the door. The smile was false, very false. I wasn't ready for this, for Delia to have a Hamilton baby, she deserved better in life. My heart was thumping loudly when I went for my shared bedroom, telling Trixie that Deels was in the early stages made it all the more real. Of course Delia wasn't due for another few weeks but I wasn't going to take any chances. Maybe I could persuade Trixie to call Mrs Busby for me, I couldn't stand the old busybody.   
I couldn't really comment on the decisions of anyone's mother since I had lost mine nearly eighteen years ago but I was sure Elizabeth Mount wouldn't have condemned me or my sister for being attacked by a man and ending up in a compromising situation.   
I had been the one to phone Delia's mother after the attack, been the one to confirm the pregnancy, and both times the woman had acted as though Delia had chosen this!   
"Trixie?" I asked, knocking sharply on the door,   
"Yes," she replied- making it clear she was decent and I could enter the room.   
Trixie was lounging on her bed with a copy of her beloved Vogue magazine. She wore her green silky kimono- the kind that reminded me of childhood- and a pair of wooden dolly-shoe style slippers.   
"What is it?" She asked the moment she saw my face. I wasn't the best at masking emotions in front of Trixie- she had a way of getting it out of me.  
"I just wanted to pop in and raise the alarm. Delia's having small contractions. I'm going to run her a bath, tuck her up and see if things settle down."   
Trixie dropped her magazine into her lap, making eye contact with me.   
"Already, she's still got three weeks, you sure it's not just beginners nerves?"  
"Well I'm hardly a beginner Trixie, I've delivered over a hundred-," I stopped when I saw her roll her eyes.   
"I meant for Delia, unless you are the mystery man," she joked.   
If only.   
Quickly realising the bad taste in her joke Trixie carried on,   
"Her delivery pack is in the clinical room-her name's on it. There's some camomile and raspberry teas in the larder too. You know where I am if you need me."   
I nodded once and stepped back through the doorway,   
"And Patsy," she called after me, "Don't worry- Delia's in good hands."  
I ran the tap, letting the cold water run over my hands as the boiler kicked in and the hot water came through. Delia shouldn't be alone. I had delivered a baby to an epileptic mother- she had suffered incredibly through the whole labour, having several seizures. She hadn't had a brain injury- but Delia had. Not much was known about the brain and even less about what happened when it was damaged. Delia may need an ambulance as her labour progressed. And if she did, I would have to leave her in the hands of a stranger.   
I heard the creak of the floorboard outside the door to the bathroom before Delia spoke, so I knew she was coming but I still jumped at the sound of her voice.   
"It's strong Pats," she told me. My heart dropped at the sound of her voice, her breathing was laboured.   
"Delia, I want you to go back and lie on the bed, I want to examine you." I tried to keep my voice light, trying not to show her even a smidgen of alarm but she saw straight through it.   
"Pats," she breathed our slowly and continued, "this is going a bit fast, isn't it?"   
I smiled at her, trying my best to hide my thoughts. It was fast, but we'd had faster,   
"The latent stage varies in length Delia, your lucky it's going at a good pace and be-."   
I stopped, her eyes were steady. They were vacant, staring straight ahead.   
"Barbara!" I called, knowing her room was the closest. Delia's eyelids cluttered quickly and she moved her lips around as if she was chewing something.   
Barbara came running out of her room, half a head full of curler rags.   
"Pats?" Delia asked, coming back to me as if nothing had happened,   
"Oh, hello Barbara." She smiled and Barbara looked in my direction, face full of confusion.   
"You had a seizure Delia," I explained to them both. Delia was now the one to look confused.   
"Are you sure? I've not had one for a while."   
"Positive," I nodded and hesitated to turn off the bath taps before taking Delia by the shoulders and frog-marching her from the room.   
"I need to examine you Delia," I explained as we walked, and I don't want you in water so soon after a seizure." She sighed, annoyed at me but taking my instructions anyway.   
Lying her on the bed I found a pair of gloves and went in to examine her,   
"Knees slightly bend and apart please." I muttered as was procedure- not that Delia didn't know the basics of an internal exam.   
"Pats," Delia breathed, and then moaned, her head tossing to the side. She began to shake violently like a rag doll in a washing machine. She began to make a horrible, high pitched squealing noise, like a sick rabbit rather than a person. I had seen grand mal's- of course I had, but this was Delia.   
"Delia, I'm right here, don't worry, I'm not leaving you." I began, stroking her face, wiping the hair from her face, trying not to think as I watched her eyes roll back and froth escape from her perfect lips. As I stroked her hair I managed to push back the top of the nightdress she wore. She hadn't done the top few buttons.   
I had to blink when I saw it, saw the signs I had prayed never to experience again. Tears spilled instantly from my eyes and my throat felt like it had collapsed the second I saw them.   
On her chest were seven red spots. 

(a/n) thank you all for being so patient over the wait! I've struggled to get this short chapter into words but I assure you all I am back onto writing mode now and I'll have more up soon :) hope you enjoy and let me know your thoughts, remember reviews give me the enthusiasm to keep me writing ;)


	15. chap 13

(a/n) hello everyone! I am sorry for the long wait, but here it is, the next chapter, I really hope you enjoy it and I really hop you will let me know what you think, thank you- as always- for reading and I’ll see you in the reviews.  
I felt myself gasp before the sound could ever have escaped me. No; no it couldn’t be. My mind flashed up images in a montage. Typhoid. The papers I had read when there was the patient last year. It was a hideous disease, no paper was needed to explain that. I knew it, knew it so well. Those spots, the return of hr seizures, the quickness at which labour was progressing, it was all adding up, two and two equalling the all too perfect four.   
One paper, an old Lancet article, stuck. I could hear the words spinning around and around in my head. There were dormant carriers of the disease, people could carry for years and never be a victim. There were several ways to spread the sickness to others: food, water. I hadn’t passed anything of the sort.   
I was hit by a tonne of bricks as Delia began to come around. It could be spread through oral-genital contact.   
Oh Christ.   
I felt sick, my throat and chest were tight, oh God please no. I opened my mouth to shout, felt Delia weakly grasping the edge of my sleeve. The words were held back by an oversized lump of fear. I tried again, feeling my heart thumping so hard it was close to arrhythmia. I could lose her. She could die.   
“Barbara!”   
“Pats?” Delia’s voice was so soft, so soothing, it killed me inside as much as I was killing her.   
“Pats, what’s wrong?” I considered those eyes, those round and mesmerising eyes. They were brimming with love- with a trust I had betrayed.   
She, slid her hand down my sleeve onto my wrist. She was hot to the touch. I felt tears tip over the edge of my eyelids and dive down my cheeks once more. I lifted my eyes from her little hand to look into her face. Her beautiful, trusting face.   
“Oh Delia,” I choked on the words, feeling like I was going to throw up but I had to swallow the feeling with a mouthful of courage and a dash of professionalism,   
“It’s Typhoid, typhoid fever.”   
Barbara chose that moment to stumble into the room, followed instantly by Trixie. They both saw my face, a visual plea for help, for them to do anything.   
Barbara rushed to my side, pulling me into a hug as Trixie peered at the spots Delia revealed for her. She nodded, putting on her own air of professionalism,   
“Barbara, please can you telephone for doctor Turner and an Ambulance. I feel we need a caesarean section operation to deliver this little one, so that we can get Delia well.” Trixie’s eyes never left mine the whole time she was speaking. She was my age, just as experienced a nurse, she knew as well as I did that surviving wasn’t on the cards for everyone.   
I tore myself from the room, running to the clinic room. I needed to do something, to be some sort of help. There were medicines, I knew them off by heart but my brain and heart were far from connected at that moment. I knew better, I knew we wouldn’t have such powerful antibiotics amongst our routine meds.   
We delivered babies for God’s sake, that was all we did, we weren’t the London, there was no Matron here to take charge, no one to save her, to pull her back before she was too sick to know her own name. She was pregnant, she was supposed to be in a place where we could help her, where we could do everything blindfolded and get it right.   
I knocked into the edge of the countertop, sending a stand full of test tubes flying to the floor, shattering into tiny pieces. What had I done? I had been wrong all these years, it had taken me meeting Delia to believe I wasn’t a perverted monster, and now, now I had fallen head first into the trap. I was poison, I couldn’t love anyone without hurting them, I loved the wrong way, I was wrong, wrong and sick and disgusting. I was destroying my entire world for the sake of a believe inside my head, a believe that I was in love.   
“Patsy?” again it was Trixie who came to the scene, she stood in the doorway, seeing the state I had become- crouched in a puddle of glass with my face and neck wringing with tears.   
“Doctor Turner is here, and so,” she paused for a second, “are these.” She brought out a towel for my face as well as a cigarette and my lighter.   
“Now, get yourself mopped up, and find us in Delia’s room.”   
It took me several minutes, breathing in slow and strong drags of the tobacco, feeling my mind begin to soothe, feel my body loosen but it wasn’t enough, it would never be enough. I had seen Delia sick, I had seen her in hospital when she couldn’t even remember her own Mam let alone me but this? This was the worst I could imagine. I may have nearly lost her once but at least she’d have only been in Wales, not heaven. 

They were all standing around the bed when I entered the room. The doctor had Delia bunched up over her large belly, had her breathing so he could measure how sick she was. They all just stood there, stood and watched as minutes ticked by, threatening me- threatening her life. I knew it was Typhoid, it made sense. I had recently been exposed, I was carrying the disease and had transmitted it through love making.   
It began to blaze as anger inside me, I watched them all so closely but nothing happened. They did nothing, nothing to help her. Were they just going to stand there?   
“It’s typhoid.” The words left my mouth flat and straight as a ruler. No emotion, no thoughts.   
All the eyes looked at me, staring at me as though I had lost my mind. Did they think I was stupid? I had been a nurse for nearly twenty years, I had seen a rotation on almost every ward in the London. I was not an idiot. Even if I had no medical training I wasn’t about to forget seeing my mother and sister die from this hideous creature, the monster which was sucking all life from my own reason to live.   
“But, Patsy,” Sister Winifred began, trying her best to be patient, even though I could see through it like a pane of glass. “There was no way for the disease to be transmitted.”   
The word was spat out before I could draw it back, like a fish determined to dive for the waters.   
“It can be transmitted through Oral-genital contact.”   
Sister Winifred’s eyes widened and she blushed slightly, Nurse Crane turned her head and Barbara stared in shock, her mouth even loosening like that of a cartoon. Only Trixie stayed strong, only she remained my crutch.   
I knew what would come the moment I said it. I knew I had destroyed everything. Wheen sister Monica-Joan asked ‘pray child, where would she come upon such contact?’ I knew the words had to come out. I knew I had to let it out, my perversion, my darkest secret. The one Delia had never been ashamed of but as I glanced at her on the bed, glanced at her peaky look and her tiny tilted mouth smile, I knew. A life without her, without love and acceptance, wasn’t a world I could have. I would lose everything but perhaps I could save a life.   
My hands shook, my throat constricted but the words came out slow and steady, my eyes never left hers, they fed me the strength I needed to make the sounds.   
“I know, because, because only I could. Delia and I. Delia is, my lover.”


	16. Chapter 16

The words, the words were horror-filled to everyone else. She had known they would be, those words- two girls being lovers- it was as bad to most as being a murdered or paedophile. It was vile and horrific and even raising my head to look into the faces of the others.   
“I think it’s time we had a word with sister Julienne.” The words came from a stern-faced Phyllis, a woman so far from the kind person I had spoken to so many times before. I felt sick to the stomach. This was it, my life was over. I would lose my job, all sense of respectability, I would lose it all but Delia would live, that was all that mattered. There was no need for a job, or a reputation if she didn’t survive. I had lost too many, seen too many deaths, hers was one I couldn’t possibly make it through.   
I was led into the dining room, sat down in one of the chairs surrounding the table. And waited.   
I felt like one of those wind-up children’s toys, the kind I remembered having as a young child, I felt I had been wound so tight if someone didn’t let me spring into action then the mechanisms inside me would break. Could someone just hurry up and say something, hurry up so we could see to Delia. She needed fluids, intravenous medication but it was all too strong. She needed the damn parasite out of her if she had any chance.   
Never in my career had I thought of a baby in such a way. The thought shocked me the moment it was uttered in my head. It was just a baby, just a tiny creature and yet, yet it was killing the thing I loved most.   
My thoughts were closed off as sister Julienne entered the room, also taking a seat at the table, as did Phyllis, Trixie, Barbara and sister Winifred. My knee was juttering like an unhappy car engine under the table. They needed to be with Delia, even if she was in the hands of the Doctor, Sister Evangelina and sister Mary-Cynthia I didn’t trust anyone with the care of my-. The words stuck, I realised the word I wanted to say was so far removed, so far from anything she would ever be. I had wanted to say my wife.   
“Nurse Mount,” Sister Julienne was the first too speak. Her voice was serious but not unkind. I could barely make myself look at her. I felt dirty; wrong. “When you took up your nursing career, were you not told of the practises that must be upkept? Of the principles to be held by a nurse? And even more so, by a midwife?”   
My mouth was dry. I remembered the words so clearly, about law breaking, adultery or any acts which could be seen in the criminal view. Those words I had known were about lesbianism, it wasn’t illegal, but the only reason for it not being illegal was because the act was considered so vulgar that no sane woman would partake. I had never thought it would be an issue. I had no intentions of ever undertaking such acts. Then I met Delia.   
“Surely,” these words came from sister Winifred, whose expression was twisted into one of distaste, “You must understand that such, such behaviour cannot be condoned in a convent?”   
To this I managed to nod a crackling voice whispering out with the movement,   
“I, I can leave. I understand everything I’ve done. I will have my name taken from the Nurses’ register. I’ll do whatever I can, so long as the same does not happen to Delia. I am begging you, do not hurt her.” I quickly dissolved into tears, the water falling down my cheeks ad imprinting lines to remind me of what I had done. Oh dear God, the things I had done.   
Trixie’s chair flew back and she came straight to my shoulder, wrapping her arm around me and allowing me to sob shamelessly into her uniform.   
“You can’t do this sister, Patsy is clearly not in a mindset to go anywhere. If she were a husband she wouldn’t be thrown into the cold.”   
“But she chose to behave this way,” Sister Winifred began, her voice slightly more sympathetic but I was sure that sympathy was aimed at Trixie, not me.   
“Now, I don’t think that’s quite true.” I looked up, startled and surprised to hear the voice of Nurse Crane.   
“You know my views on the actions that go on in our homes. There is no malice in Nurse Mount’s actions. And I highly doubt she had any more choice in the matter than Mrs Turner had.”   
“Nurse mount.” It was back to sister Julienne,   
“I have no intentions to deprive you of your career. I will not condone your relationship, but neither will I prevent it.” There was a long pause, in which Barbara too, came to stand behind me, placing a hand on my shoulder.   
“I think that you can’t help but love the people that you do,” she said lightly, but there was a certain amount of doubt in her tone.   
“As I was saying,” Sister Julienne continued, “In Act 10, Peter say, ‘Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.’ And just as Jesus was hidden as a child until he grew strong enough to be shown for the man he would become, just as the people of the time believed his ideas and identity wrong, I believe the same is true for the both of you. Nurse Mount you and Ms Busby will be safe here, you will be welcomed here as you always have been. Although I don’t yet understand your predisposition, I will try my best to respect your way of life as you have respected ours.”  
I had never felt such gratitude, such platonic love for another person. We were able to stay, to live at Nonnatus, to continue working and be safe. My agnostic relationship with God had not been so strong in a very long time.   
Footsteps interrupted my fast heartbeat, turning it still when I recognised the feet. Dr Turner.   
“good news,” he began, “but I will need to tell you on the way, I need two midwives with me, this baby isn’t going to wait for no one.”


	17. Chapter 17

The words were possibly the best I had heard- the best since liberation day. I didn’t notice the tap water turn from hot to scalding until my reflexes jumped in and I pulled my hand pack. She was safe. Doctor Turner’s words still rung in my ears, repeating in my brain over and over. It wasn’t Typhoid. She wasn’t dying. She was staying with me.   
And then there was the other side to things, we were safe. Sister Julienne was going to protect us, she believed in us. I knew little of the tragedies that had happened to women like us, I was naïve to the treatment they had suffered but I knew enough, knew enough to know it was rare to be accepted and loved in this way- least of all by nuns in a convent.   
The pain from my hands hadn’t quite hit until Trixie knocked on the bathroom door. I saw the scald, bright red and painful, tutted to myself, and plunged my hand under the cold tap instead, taking the heat out the burn as best I could. It was probably too late. I couldn’t bring myself to care. There was too much in my head, more Delia than had ever been in my head before. She wasn’t dying, we weren’t being thrown into the streets but the situation was still serious, she was still in a critical condition, she still needed the help of the Doctor and there was still an ambulance on its way. They needed to get Delia well, she had to get well.   
A flash of Delia’s seizures passed through my mind, flashes of her lying there, her eyes rolled back and her body flopping and shaking like a ragdoll in a motorcar. I knew how to deal with seizures, I had seen countless Tonic-Clonic’s throughout my years both qualified and in training but seeing her like that, seeing her so ill and being reminded of how delicate she still was. It was frightening.   
“Patsy, Delia isn’t going to wait much longer, she needs you.”   
She needed me. She needed my help and support, both as a midwife and as her girlfriend, as the person she loved and would love for many years to come.   
I opened the door, Trixie was standing there, already dressed in her delivery whites with her hair back. Her gloves were all that she needed. She gave me a smile, a gentle smile, a comforting smile. A smile that said, ‘it’s ok.’   
In her arms Trixie held another gown which she handed me into my very surprised hands. I opened my mouth, ready to protest – or in the very least to question the situation. However, Trixie spoke for me.   
“I’ve attended many births but none have been quite like this one, however Delia needs you. She listens to you, you will make her feel calm and hopefully we can keep these ghastly seizures at bay.”  
I wasn’t entirely sure she was right, the best person for the job was Mrs Busby. As much as I despised the woman she was Delia’s Mother and wasn’t the person who had got Delia into this horrible, horrible mess in the first place. I had made mistakes, I had hidden behind rule books and used my authority for the wrong reasons in my youth, but this time I had to stick with my mistake, I would deal with the consequences.  
I dressed into the whites, scrubbing up my hands once more and slipping on the gloves. Then it was time. I stood outside the door to the bedroom, breathing deeply in and out, trying to calm myself even though my thundering heart had other ideas. I was never going to be calm. Now I knew how the Father’s felt.   
The door was opened for me by Doctor Turner. His mouth a straight line and his face lacking in emotion. He nodded to me, welcoming me into the room.   
“If nothing else Nurse Mount, I think she can do with your reassurance. Nurse Franklin has explained the situation, at this time my views aren’t important, what is, is the health of mother and baby.”   
I nodded, the type of nod a schoolchild gave to their headmaster. I agreed wholeheartedly with every word he uttered. The vow of the Nonnatuns was mother and baby first, at that time, I couldn’t agree more.   
The room was ready now, Delia had a sheet across her bent knees, her head was thrown back against the headrest, one hand entwined in the wicker. She looked agonised and instantly I was filled with the desire to do something, anything, to help her. Trixie stood at the end of the bed, ready and waiting for anything to happen at the business end of things. The Doctor had gone straight to take up his place at the side of Trixie, he gave me a flash of a reassuring grin. I didn’t feel reassured but I knew this, I knew how it all worked and with that I managed to kick myself into action.   
I went slowly to Delia’s head crouching on the floor beside her bed so our eyes were level. She still hadn’t noticed my arrival. I reached out, running a hand softly across her damp forehead and instantly the creases in her eyelids ironed themselves out, she opened her deep eyes too look right into mine.   
“Pats?”   
I smiled, even so dazed after several seizures she was able to recognise me, to look happy about my presence even though she was in so much pain. She moved her hand down to take mine but shuddered as a contraction took hold of her. I grasped her hand anyway, slipping my fingers in between hers and allowing her to squeeze as hard as she could.   
Again, and again it happened, again and again she squeezed my hand, pulling herself upwards, curling her back and crying out in yelps and screams. Again, and again, contraction after contraction I held her, wrapping my spare arm around her shoulders, whispering to her. ‘you’re doing so well.’ She cried out in sobs as time went on. I noticed Trixie and Doctor Turner talk. My stomach twisted in fear. It felt like hours had passed, where was that ambulance? They had to be here soon. They had to help.   
Trixie beckoned to me and reluctantly I pealed my hand from Delia’s, her hand flopping back onto the bed.   
“Baby is in distress, I’m not getting a good heart rate.” Trixie began telling me in a whisper. I swallowed.   
“I don’t think we can wait for a caesarean. Delia is too tired from the seizures. I’m going to attempt forceps deliver.” The Doctor finished, his expression again gave away no emotions.   
Forceps. Right. I had done this technique, I’d even seen it in the camps as a young girl with some makeshift instruments. I knew it was usually smooth and quick. It was the quick that was suddenly causing alarm in my head. Was I ready for quick? Were either of us truly ready or prepared for this?


	18. Chapter 18

Looking back, I remember it all in fits and starts. I remember focussing hard on the floor. The carpet was beige. I could see all the fibres of the carpet, could see the grid like material which made up the bottom of the carpet. Trixie was ready, she had the scalpel discretely held behind the sheet over Delia’s knees. I knew there was a good chance of a little cut being made. Doctor held the tong-like forceps, tight on the head of the little thing, the baby.   
It was starting to add up in my head. There was a baby going to come into the world, a baby that I was partly responsible for. I’d done this so many times, held so many hands, held legs and rubbed backs. I had caught more babies than I could imagine I ever would have. I kept my eyes on the carpet, feeling Delia’s sweating hand warm through my gloves. She sighed again, flopping back. My eyes went first to Delia, who’s eyes were closed and she was taking small, panting breaths. She’d done enough obstetrics to know how to behave. She was an old hand at this. I looked from Delia’s sweaty, red face down to Trixie. Trixie was smiling.   
Her smile was broad and confident. It was going well. She spoke loudly then, speaking so Delia could hear.   
“You make this look easy Nurse Busby, head is born. On the next pain I just need one big cracker of a push – Doctor is still helping, he will go with you, when you are ready, go for it.”   
Delia opened her eyes, she looked at me, right in the eye. She was exhausted, totally worn out from the seizures and then the labour. I squeezed her hand tight, looking back. I had never been so proud, she was doing so well. I was always proud of my patients, always amazed at the strength they found. Delia was stronger than that, she wasn’t carrying the baby of the person she loved. She was carrying the child of a monster, a man who would never be brought to justice. She was fighting a brain injury, she was fighting her fears and desires. She was my warrior. I leaned over to her, moving her hair gently away from her ear. I swallowed while we waited. It would have been seconds between the last and next contraction and yet it felt like an age.   
She began to tense, her grip on my hand slipping and tightening at once.   
“Come on Deels,” I whispered in her ear, “You can do this.” I paused, there was so much risk in the words that were swimming in my head, but the risk was gone. We were safe. And the words had never left my mouth when there were others around. This was going to be the first.   
“I love you Delia.”   
She roared with pain and effort, tears streaming down her cheeks as she pushed her body forwards, pushing hard against the pain.   
Then it came. The cry. The fresh, crackly and loud cry that said ‘I’m alive’. I had felt nothing until that moment but on the cry, tears streamed from my eyes. I felt a lump in my throat, and a twinge in my heart, a squeeze and flutter of pure love, just as strong as I felt for Delia. I was so proud of her, and instantly grabbed her into a tight and fierce hug. She hugged me back, her tears staining the white of my gown. She was grinning and crying like any other new mother. I stood and stroked her hair, holding her to my chest.   
I turned and looked back to Trixie and Doctor Turner. Trixie scooped up the small bundle in a green towel. I caught sight of it. The little face, its eyes were open and bright blue, not the blue of a newborn but the blue of Delia’s eyes. It had a spattering of hair, mixed in with the white creamy substance that surrounded all babies in the womb. Then Trixie beckoned to me. I managed to let go of Delia, although my heart screamed for her to never leave my sight again.   
Trixie had tears on her own cheeks. She passed the tiny little thing over to me, pushing it into my arms.   
“Well, I bet you never thought this would ever happen. I want to be the first to congratulate you, Patsy, you have a daughter.”  
A daughter. Daughter. A little girl. Delia had given birth to a beautiful baby girl.   
“Her name is Eirian,” Delia said weakly from the opposite end of the bed. “Eirian Patience Busby.”   
Eirian. I thought it over, the name sounded so right on my tongue. I went to the first love of my life, handing the second into her arms. Delia was shaking, not from a seizure or from pain but from love. There was so much love in her body it seemed to be bursting out. As I was withdrawing from placing the baby, placing Eirian, into her mother’s arms. Delia quickly reached up, cupping my chin and pulling me to her. She kissed me, deeply and firmly as though she was trying to transfer the love from herself into me. When, finally, I broke away with a light popping sound and opened my eyes the room was empty. Trixie and Doctor Turner had left us to ourselves.   
I had never seen anything so beautiful. So fantastic, so surreal, Eirian was beautiful, Delia was beautiful. They were all I could have asked for, all I could ever have wanted. From that moment, I felt like I had my reward. I had survived the camps, I had lost most of my family but now I had gained another one. It was never going to be easy, never going to be the way we dreamed it would, but as much as we were missing we had love both for Eirian and for each other. Love is the foundation of any family, and on it sometimes castles grow.   
As I watched my little family, I could appreciate what my mother had said about clouds. Even though I had many black and grey clouds in my sky, I had one, not just lined with silver, but shimmering gold.


	19. epilogue

Epilogue   
Eirian grew. She thrived through babyhood and we remained safe in Nonatus house, where we could be a family without being hurt by the outside world. When she turned a year, we gained our own home. Delia and Eirian were entitled to a council house and as their ‘help’ I went with them. She learned to babble, to sit, to crawl and finally to walk on her fat little legs. When she was four I went back to university. I became an obstetrician, the one who would give advice to Doctor Turner and the Nonatuns, I had a better wage, one that meant, by the time Eirian was ten in 1972 we were able to buy a small two bedroomed house and moved away, moving to the small town of Betys-y-coed in North Wales. We moved again when Eirian was sixteen. She left school that year, in 1978, and went on to college before going on to university and becoming a veterinary assistant. In 1997 Eirian gave birth to a baby boy, our grandson Jack, and then in 2009 I was officially allowed to adopt Eirian, making her Eirian Mount legally for the first time in her life, and making her one of the first children to have two mums.   
And then, in 2014, at the age of 85 and 79, Delia and I got our life’s dream come true. On the 23rd of December Delia became my wife. We perhaps didn’t have the wedding we had dreamed of, there were few of those from our working days still with us. Trixie, Barbara and Sister Mary Cynthia were there and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Jack, our grandson, had his first dance with his boyfriend, being the one to take us on, a new generation of gay people, who would go on to have a better world, a fairer world; a world of acceptance. 

(a/n) so here we are, at long last we are at the end. It isn’t the end however, I have many plans of other Call the Midwife- or essentially patsy and delia- fanfiction to come. Thank you again for reading, and in the meantime if you haven’t already go and read Love For The World, a short one-shot from Eirian’s point of view. Once again thank you for sticking with me and I hope you will stay to read more. 


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